mortgage-backed security

mortgage-backed security, a financial instrument created by securitizing a pool of mortgage loans. Typically, a lender that holds several mortgage loans combines them into a bundle that may represent several million dollars of debt; the lender then divides the bundle into saleable shares in a process known as securitization. An investor who buys such a share, called a mortgage-backed security (MBS), is entitled to receive a portion of the principal and interest payments on the underlying mortgages, which may include standard (prime) mortgages or subprime mortgages extended to households with poor credit histories (see subprime lending).

Revenues from the sale of MBSs helped to finance a significant portion of the subprime lending boom that occurred in the United States prior to the financial crisis of 2007–08. The crisis brought with it a substantial increase in defaults on mortgage loans and turned the MBSs that carried defaulted loans into “toxic” (essentially worthless) assets. To mitigate the resulting damage to financial markets and to boost the economy, the Federal Reserve subsequently purchased toxic MBSs from investors in large quantities. Similar measures were taken by central banks in other countries affected by the crisis.